In the hellish crazy-go-round of life, few things act as stabilising constants. Your mother can go wrong, and develop her final years into a career of aimless dirty protests. The building in which you live will decay, and this planet is destined to smash itself into the sun like some kind of idiot.

So it’s a relief to finally have something good, pure and eternal to cling to; and that is my fresh-faced and hand-humping hatred of Brenda.

Today, I don’t really have anything to say about her - the Passion has had a slightly skew-iff effect on me. Instead of thinking - “I know, today I shall write about the shade of her cheeks, because I’m sure I just actually watched a facial capillary burst” - I thought I’d pull my head out and give everyone else the chance to bitch about their Brendas.

So, I dusted off my old PHP thimbles and tippety-tapped night and day, and look; I’ve made a little website which is solely dedicated to bitching about the fuckers that you work with, as and when you please. It’s not entirely bug-free at the moment, but I’m not a proper programmer, so SHUT UP.

This is the new site, at http://lifelong.disappointment.com.

IDEAS TO CALL THE NEW SITE
- OH GOD NOT MONDAY LOL
- I THINK WE NEED A ROTA FOR THIS
- DIAGNOSIS - MONDAY!
- I KNOW YOU’RE TALKING TO ME, I’M IGNORING YOU
- MY STAPLER IS JAMMED RIGHT THAT’S THE LAST STRAW
- IS IT FRIDAY YET? I GENUINELY DON’T KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS
- FUCK WORK, WORK IS FULL OF CUNTS
- WHOO HOO IT IS PAYDAY ALTHOUGH I DON’T GET PAID ENOUGH REALLY
- I AM ONLY TWELVE I SHOULDN’T BE HERE
- my colleagues constantly give me pause to wonder at the entire direction of my life

What follows is an exercise in what happens when someone says “write something for this site, it will be great”. What I will do is sit there stewing for two weeks, then write something like this in a sweat. This was written for Weebl’s Stuff, on the basis that they’d link to my book and say what a wonderful Christmas present it would make. Less than a week later, my book had dropped to 10,000th place on the Amazon bestseller charts. Were people so crestfallen that they returned the book? Or are sales figures like drawing yourself back on a massive catapult, and we’re about to get fired into the horizon?

I know the people who’re reading this probably bought the book for everyone they knew last Christmas - but for fuck’s sake, you must have met new people since THEN. What are you, a bunch of fucking hermits?

Anyway, here’s what I wrote for that Jonti and m’mate Lee at Sumo Dojo / Weebl’s Stuff.

THERE ARE ONLY SIX QUESTIONS, AND I HAVE ANSWERED THEM ALL

Questions can be boiled down into six categories; WHICH, WHAT, WHEN, HOW, WHO and WHY. If you’ve come out of a coma with different music taste and amnesia, you might also say things like “I like Starsailor?” This is also a question, but I don’t know how that works, so let’s forget about it.

Once all these questions are answered, we can get back to the proper stuff, like inventing massive sandwiches and handing out flyers for nightclubs that don’t exist, like Big Jeff’s Dynamite Caddyshack. So, here I go.

WHAT WERE EALING COUNCIL THINKING BUILDING A MASSIVE COCK OUT OF ROADS NEAR MY HOUSE?

I’ve just moved house to the Ealing Broadway area. It is a nice house, and my flatmates are two delightful young men. There is an exquisite collection of fast food outlets at the end of my road - I’m within desperate-dialling-OMG-so-hungry distance from two - TWO - clay ovens. I can buy a pizza from one clay oven and pop it into the other on the way home, to keep it clay-fresh.

So what could ruin this idyll? Well, I was using Google Local, and planning where I would open my first Neoporium. I’m not sure what Neoporiums sell yet, but they sound pretty futuristic so it’s probably memories, dreams, or bits of Jupiter. Cross that bridge when I come to it. I’d got as far as about five hundred metres from my house, when I noticed this atrocity.

You see it, right? It’s a road cock being wanked off by the road arms of another road. The attention to detail is such that one of the arms goes behind the cock, and the other in front. What galls me most is that I’ve probably walked along that road. I could may have possibly almost brushed against the helmet of that road. As I walked away from that road, a man in a helicopter could have mistaken me for a sperm. Call me a prude, but I don’t want flying men thinking I’m a sperm.

Thanks, Ealing County Council. Thanks for ruining my life.

HOW MANY PIXELS ARE THERE IN AN ANUS?

This is a philosophical question, that begs a million other questions. How many megapixels does life have? How close are you to the anus? Are you using digital or optical zoom? All these questions have plagued anus scientists since a fat woman sat in some sand and left a little bum-dent.

My answer finally came, playing Nintedogs. I chose the Siberian Husky, and he’s turned out to be a bit of a saucepot. He belongs to a spirited breed - he doesn’t take orders well, he pulls at the lead, and he whimpers when I try to stuff his tails in his fucking mouth. Worst of all, when I’m sat with my Nintendog on my lap, watching The Vicar of Dibley with my great-aunts, sometimes I look away from the screen to accept a biscuit, or laugh at the fat and/or stupid people on the television. And when I look back to my pet, I find that he has positioned himself so that my loving stroke is poking at his little anus.

This wouldn’t be so bad, but I have lost my touch-screen stylus, and am making do with a small screwdriver. What would my dear aunt say if she knew that I was poking at a tiny dog’s bot-plop with a mini-screwdriver? I honestly don’t know what she’d say. I’ve made a few guesses, though.

1. I say Jonathan, that’s hardly cricket! Cricket is entirely different to what you’re doing.
2. When I said “would like like another cup of tea”, did you think that was a modern euphemism for sticking a screwdriver into a dog’s arsehole?
3. In my day we used knitting needles, but still - excellent technique.

I’m straying away from the point, which is that I know know exactly how many pixels there are in an anus - and there are two.

I’ve looked at this picture long and especially hard, and I’ve decided that only two pixels are actually bum. The others are merely a bit bummy, and we’re not to hold that against them - but to give them full bum status would be rash. So, it’s two. Armed with this new arsenal of bum-knowledge, I can now name my own anus-pixels, and they are called Tony and Darren.

WHO LEFT A SLICE OF BREAD BEHIND THE RADIATOR?

Seriously, who did that? I mean it’s not easy to get a slice of bread behind the radiator, is it? Especially in the lounge. How often do you have untoasted, unbuttered, bread in the lounge? Perhaps if you’d bought a slice in to show your friend, to say “look how malted this bread is - that’s some malty bread, my friend”. But following that, you’d rarely say “Well, you know what we do with bread this malty. We put it behind the radiator. Don’t we kids!”

“Yay! Put it behind the radiator, Uncle Log!” This never happens.

Really, I’ve stood there with a full loaf, trying my hardest to accidentally drop a slice of bread behind the damn radiator. It doesn’t go. I’ve tried slinging it like a yeasty frisbee, I’ve tried throwing the whole bollocking loaf at the radiator, thinking one might go down. It didn’t.

Loaf after loaf I have thrown at my radiator, and not a single slice has fallen down the back.

Which leads me to the inevitable conclusion that someone PUT the slice of bread there. Why? It can’t be a prank. Pranks smell worse than that. This is just a bit of bread that been slightly toasted by the central heating.

I picture the scene. In the kitchen, the perpetrator sees a loaf of bread, and thinks “mm, I quite fancy a bit of that bread”. He takes six slices into the lounge, and turns on Friends. Slices one and two are gobbled cheerfully, and he notes from Joey’s weight that this is probably season eight, maybe nine. He doesn’t enjoy slice numbers three or four so much. In fact, after slice four, he’s gone off bread altogether. Silce five is a trial - but he heroically ploughs through it. Slice six, however, becomes the enemy. He can no longer stand the sight of this bread. He thinks - and I’m going to come clean here, and admit that it was me - that if I put any more bread in my mouth I would puke. I should take it back to the kitchen. But it is Friends on the telly, so I can’t leave the sofa in case Chandler done a trump and I missed it. So I tucked the bread gently behind the radiator, and thought to myself that I’d move it when Friends finished.

But I never moved the bread, because I forgot all about it. Until someone said “why is there bread behind the radiator?”, and I laughed and said “how absurd - I don’t even like Friends, let alone five slices of delicious bread”.

I’ve never confessed in real life. I PUT BREAD BEHIND RADIATORS. God, that feels good.

WHICH LITTLE BRITAIN MERCHANDISE SHOULD YOU BUY FOR YOUR FRIENDS?

It’s approaching Christmas, so you really need to be considering which Little Britain doll or key-ring you’re going to be buying your friends. Use this table to quickly assess the pros and cons of the more popular choices.

Doll	Pros	Cons
Emily Howard Talking Plush	All Emily’s most best catchphrases - I’m a lady! Ideal Christmas present for an unconvincing transvestite! Has larger face than you have any right to expect!	Novelty disappears within seconds! What are you, some kind of twat? PUT SOME THOUGHT INTO YOUR PRESENTS, YOU AWFUL SHIT.
Vicky Pollard Talking Mug	All Vicky’s most best catchphrases - Yeh but no but! Ideal Christmas present for a friend with mouth acne! Makes every cup of tea an unstoppable catalogue of mirth!	Guaranteed to have you hurling scalding tea across the room! For God’s sake, a talking mug? Are you seriously so dumb? You don’t know the person at all, do you? It’s just a mindless, stupid gift so you can just stop thinking about other people and get back to wanking your little penis and/or vagina.
Daffyd Keychain	All Daffyd’s most best catchphrases - “I am the only gay in the village”! Ideal Christmas present for a humourless gay bloke who values his assumed isolation so highly that he ignores the obvious presence of gays all around him! Best gay comedy character since “RapeFag 2000″!	Novelty wears off three seconds before you actually see it! Seriously, well done on having a gay friend and being so cool about it that you buy them a doll that says gay stuff! Jesus CHRIST just spend some TIME with your friends and stop rubbing their faces in how little thought, effort or genuine empathy you put into the relationship. CARRY ON LIKE THIS AND YOU WILL GROW OLD ALONE.

WHY DID ELLA FITZGERALD CROSS THE ROAD?

I have come up with five reasons why Ella Fitzgerald might have crossed the road. If it’s not one of these, then I’m sure I haven’t a clue.

1. She felt the first tingling of a cold sore developing, and someone had left a bucket of old Zovirax outside Tesco. Unfortunately for Ella, the Tesco was on the opposite side of the road.

2. Ella and her lover were walking her dog, and eating chicken from the bucket. Her lover paused to gesture at a diamond ball gown in a shop window, and the greasy chicken bone flew from his hand. Ella’s pet schnauser chased it, dragging her after him.

3. Ella’s diet of iron filings and ball bearings means that she has to phone in advance if she plans to walk past the local magnet shop on the other side of the road. Her mischeivous butler sometimes only pretends to make the call!

4. She is obsessive compulsive and has been crossing roads constantly for twenty five years. There is no real reason why Ella Fitzgerald is crossing the road, it is the symptom of mental disorder.

5. She lives opposite her old mate Toni Braxton, and regularly visits. Besides, people cross roads all the time. No big.

WHEN IS THE WORLD GOING TO END?

On January 4th, 2050, at 4:22pm, the last human will succumb to the zombie plague. The woman, who is pregnant, was mankind’s last hope, after her lover was torn apart in a lift shaft. Despite her religious upbringing, she had accepted the fact that for mankind to survive, she would eventually have to bear the children of her unborn son; what she didn’ t know was that it was a girl, and that no amount of lezzing up - however energetic and muddy - will get anyone pregnant, although the male zombies would probably have loved it. Anyway, she gets her head slammed in a massive door and that’s the end of us all.

It’s not entirely fair. Boo hoo, it’s not fair. :(

My job covering the cervical screening course ended ten days ago, but they liked me enough to take me back. Now I’m in another role, whose details are too dull to properly understand. But today is my first day back, after taking a week off watching the telly.

This morning, I got off the bus, and Brenda greeted me. With a weeklong drudge slog hanging from my ankles, this would normally have made my tongue sizzle. But, bouyed by my absence, I winked at her, and decided to keep the conversation on my terms – largely by talking over her. Incredibly, she liked it, and decided to let me in on the office news.

Monica’s got my chair.

My hatred of Monica pre-dates Brenda by some weeks. Monica is a mythical office spectre; her long absences based on entertaining illnesses. When RSI became a commonly-known condition, she had an epiphany – that’s why her hands were shit at doing things! It wasn’t her under-gifted shitfa brain firing off a relentless volley of dumb, dumb commands, it was Health and Safety’s fault.

Now, she has two wrist rests. Presumably if she balances it out, so that she’s had an average of one wrist-rest over the course of her life, this will cure her “RSI”. It’s only because her nails are as long as an Indian fakir’s that she can reach the keyboard at all.

Then, she ruined her reputation for hypochondria by getting a tumour in her eye. Where it would be uncharitable of me to claim that a God-fearing Mormon such as Monica would fake a tumour in her eye, it does give her the opportunity to do the following, which appear to come very naturally to her;

1. Take months off at a time, to put eye drops in.
2. Burst into tears whenever asked to do work, because it all so horrible.
3. Steal my fucking desk, because the “glare” from her identically-lit monitor is too much for her.

My desk was magnificent. No-one could see what I was doing on the internet. Monica’s desk, apart from having the stink of long-term illness about it, is exposed to the whole office. And that’s what the crafty cunt was up to, the second she got her chance. Honestly, you let your guard down for a fucking second. I’m going to dazzle her with the reflection from my watch. I’ll give the bitch glare. Come get some glare! I got a wrist fulla the stuff! And if I get tired, reflecting sunlight into your tumour, I’m gonna come round your desk and rest my bitty wrists! ‘Cos your desk is like some kinda fuckin’ wrist spa! With little wrist-jacuzzis and shit!

Now, I’m not one to bitch, but I’ve seen her typing letters in Excel. I watched over her shoulder, my mouth blopping open-shut in awe. I asked her whether she should be using a word processor, like Word, the software for words. It’s part of the Office package for offices, I explained. She replied – “I tried that, I couldn’t get the words over here.” She pointed to the cell range G1-G5, where she had typed the address.

At the moment, as I live and type, she’s being talked through a data entry form. She was told “you put the name in there”. Her reply, with the emphatic arrogance that I love so much…

“Why does it ask for name? You leave name blank.”

Now, I don’t know where to focus my hatred. Dog with two dicks. I know what I’ll do - I’ll ignore them both, and try to write something funny that’s not based on hating the cunts that fill this world. It is getting to be a bit like shooting a pike in a teapot.

Sometimes, Brenda lets you into her world. It’s a strange thing, to be embraced by someone you despise - especially if you have the instinctive desire to be liked by everyone, no matter how much they’ve proved themself to be a big anus.

On the one hand, I was enjoying the fact that this creature had come from her desk and was telling me her funny story… but the actual telling of the story was close to unbearable. It was only by turning on my dictaphone that I was able to relax - I could listen to her without vomiting so long as I had this noble, ulterior motive. To record our conversation and play it to [three inhabitants of] the world.

Before telling me this story, Brenda had sat at her desk, laughing at something. Immediately after the laugh, she looked around. Then she laughed again, and followed it with an “oh, dear!” that clearly emphasised the askability surrounding her mirth. Looking over to me, she took my grimace as an inviting wince, and wrinkled around the desks to my chair. She had a photo.

It was a photo of her, laughing. Laughing in the sense of “mouth widening, teeth bared, eyes squinting”. I recognised it as a laugh, anyway - even though these same expressions can be used for “on the floor, awaiting a kick to the stomach”. The latter describes my face. Hanging from her blouse in the photo is a “Do Not Disturb” sign used in hotels. The weight of the sign is pulling her flimsy blouse down a touch - not obscene, but enough to remind me that she was once a sexual creature, and God save us, may still be.

This sign is a comical one - it features Winnie The Pooh struggling, with a pot of honey stuck onto his head, and has the caption;

It’s the kind of photo that stands for itself. It’s not awful - I mean, it’s not nearly as bad as the office posters you more usually find - and if she’d had it pinned to her partition, I wouldn’t have thought any less of her for it. But she’s not willing to let it rest there, is she? She’s not even going to rest, having stuffed it under my nose. This picture is so amazing to her that she wants to give me the back story.

It came at a difficult time in the office - morale was low, and good old Brenda was keen to portray herself as the office jester. This is an image that she genuinely holds - when it is painfully clear to everyone else that she’s nothing more than vocal shrapnel lodged in everyone’s fucking face. This is where we join the story - the dictaphone is now on.

[what follows is the transcript - click here to listen]

just start lightening it up, to have a laugh about it, because we were all getting a little bit tetchy. So I hung this little sign up that said “don’t bother me, I’m having a bad day”. So Peter came around with his camera, and said he wanted to take a picture. “Don’t bother me, I’m having a bad day…” Arrr that’s why I was so pleased, because actually… you can actually read it. Crikey No, you can read it. It’s quite nice… it looks a bit sultry, hanging off your bra like that.

I was showing off for the dictaphone, there. She looked spurred.

Well it’s quite funny because … that’s why I’m laughing. Because when he was taking the picture, right… he kept lowering… he kept lowering the camera. And I said “oi, what you doing, lowering the camera?” And he, well of course he’s….. [voice tapers off into nothing as she makes mouth gestueres that look a little bit gay] Yeah, I know, yeah.

Brenda physically can’t say the word “gay”. After the recording finishes, she says “I know it’s the fashion, these days, but…”, which prompted me to write down “anal sex isn’t a pair of nice shoes” and promise myself I’d make it into a T-shirt.

So… I… er… So I knew he wasn’t, you know, but I was just you know, kinda winding him up. And in the end, he got embarrassed, and started blushing… and that’s when I started laughing. And then he took the picture, and it was just perfect. So he was lowering it to get all the words on – yeah, of course he was rather than actually take a filthy sex shot of you, for his own purposes.

She enjoys the fact that I’m responding to her, but what I’m saying is irrelevant. The tracks to this conversation were laid minutes ago, and I’m just a passenger.

So that’s why I’m laughing, and not only that, to make matters worse, there’s a barrier there… a barrier? a barrier, a partition… and when he was lowering the camera, and I said “ere, what are you doing, lowering that camera, what do you think you’re doing, what do you think you’re taking pictures of”… Did faces slowly appear, above… …there were people on the other side, listening to the conversation! I completely forgot, I was so engrossed in winding him up! Stop lowering that camera, stop lowering that camera, and he was laughing, and I was laughing, and of course the people on the other side, I only realised afterwards that people must have been thinking “what is going on over there?” which made it even funnier! And that’s why I’m really laughing, it completely went, and he, and he took the moment, he went CLICK.

She is making me laugh inside my head, now. When she said “and he was laughing, and I was laughing”, she’s just given up her right to claim any part of reality, beyond being a character in a sketch show.

Brenda fondly thinks that the people on the other side of the partition - whose morale she was trying to raise with this photo that she doesn’t seem to have shown them, only me - were thinking “That Brenda!”

She would probably come flying apart and dissipate in a tearless, sandy sob if they told her what they were really thinking, which was “why does death come to so many, but not to this immortal crone?”

What makes it even better is, I didn’t mention it to my husband before, right, just because I just can’t. [makes more gay faces] He’s… he’s… You don’t have to whisper the word… you can say gay these days. He’s not going to think… he’s not going to think… he’s not going to think… he’s not going to think “what was he doing taking that picture”. I haven’t told him, you see, so it’ll be a nice surprise for him.

This section boils down into three statements;

1. “It will be a nice surprise for him to see that I was photographed at work.”
This is a classic case of “The suprise that was met with a ruffle of a newspaper and a that’s nice, dear”. Unless…

2. “I couldn’t tell my husband that I was photographed by a gay man, although (1) - it will be a nice surprise for him.”

Oh, Brenda. Brenda, Brenda, Brenda.

3. “My husband will not assume I am fucking the man who photographed me, because he is gay. Although (2) - I cannot tell him he was gay, just because. Still, (1) - it’ll be a nice surprise, anyway.”

BRENDA!

I am glad that Brenda has taken me into her confidence, and I hope to get more stories out of her. I’m thinking of writing an anthology. Shit, I wonder if I could get her to invite me around for sunday dinner?

Unbelievably, some people have asked me what I’m talking about. What is IDST, they ask, before putting a slipper on their hands and saying “DID I DO RIGHT MNNNNGGGGG”.

So, Lesson Zero : IDST stands for If Destroyed, Still True. You add it to a written insult to ensure that the person you are insulting remains insulted long after they’ve scribbled over it and said “SHUP UP YOU’RE BULLYING ME”. What follows details the historical wranglings between the insultors and the insultees.

	LESSON ONE : BASICS There is nothing controversial here. Simon is a bra, and if this message is destroyed, then Simon remains a bra. The orange IDST forms part of the sentence - this is acceptable. There should be no commas, and definitely no semi-colons, between the graffito and the IDST. The purple IDST uses the trusty arrows technique to apply its protection. Both are equally effective. Simon, suddenly, has no logical way to prove that he is not a bra. Should he remain aloof, and ignore it - allowing the allegation to go unchecked? Or should he take active steps to "destroy" the graffito, which amounts to a signed confession? That is a matter for Simon.
	LESSON TWO : INDST At first glance, INDST seems a valuable addition to the graffitist’s arsenal. It puts the graffiti in an enviable position - whether it’s destroyed or not, it is true. Immortality is almost guaranteed, surely? Well, no. To be honest, INDST has the stench of insecurity about it. The very fact that you hate picnics is written on a wall, desk or bus seat, should be conclusive evidence that it is true; to be overly concerned about what should happen should someone NOT destroy your graffiti, is to be close to neurosis.
	LESSON THREE : BASIC DESTRUCTION To remove an graffito with IDST protection is a simple process, but one with a very important chronology. A careless wipe, scour, or sandblast here might first destroy section (2). This triggers the protection afforded by section (1), the IDST, rendering the graffito forever true. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you from writing your own reply - but negative graffiti, such as "my mum’s face doesn’t just taper off" occupies a strange area. In real life, people will believe you if you say "I’m gay" (unless you’re talking to an ugly woman). If you say "I’m not gay", however, they’ll say "alright, stop being so gay about it, you gay". The same applies to graffiti; negatively-phrased graffiti will be taken to mean the complete opposite of what it says.
	LESSON FOUR : THE CHAIN IDST One of the earlier innovations in IDST technology was the chain IDST. In this diagram, (a) protects the sentiment - that pogs went out with the dinosaurs. (b) protects (a), and (c) protects (b). This can go on, ad infinitum. The idea that this protects the graffito with any more security than a simple IDST is folly; however, any attempt to destroy the scrawl without rendering it true for ever and ever, must "work up the tail". Destroying (c) renders (b) destroyable, likewise (b) to (a), and (a) to the actual message. Destroying (a) first activates (b), making (a), if anything, even truer than before. Now we have a similar situation as in Lesson Three - with IDST (a) now being the most true thing in the world, the main message will forever remain protected by it, and there’s nothing you can do about it, not now, not ever, not no way, uh-huh. Similarly - if you destroy (b), (c) promotes it to absolute truth, making (a) indestructable. The destruction of Chain IDSTs relies on the outermost IDST being unprotected by its own IDST; once you have an indestructible, non-conditional IDST in the chain you are destroying, you are lost.
	Lesson 5 : The Gordian IDST The Gordian IDST is, in effect, a chain IDST in a pretty frock. It relies chiefly on the impatience and unwillingness of the aggrieved party to follow the chain around and destroy the IDSTs in the correct order. A simple wipe across could set of an tangled explosion of immutable truth, creating enough fact sparks to lend the writing a translucent glow. With such a magnifying effect, it can hardly be doubted that the writer could smell Lindsey - not only at the time of writing, but now, and forever more, amen. And so can everyone else, because let’s face it - Lyndsey honks.
	Lesson 6 : Gridlock The next major advance in IDST came with the innovative idea of co-dependent IDSTs. See this example, and marvel at the elegant simplicity. Each IDST carries out a dual purpose - to protect the main message, that james eats more calories than he expends, and also to watch the back of its brother. Destroy one IDST, and the other automatically becomes the "straight dope". You’re therefore trapped - there is literally nothing you can do but pay awed homage to the innovators of the Gridlock method. If you are James, you might also face-hug a Tunnock’s Tea Cake.
	Lesson 7 : Arrow Destruction In the constant battle between those who use graffiti to insult their fellow man, and those who seek to destroy it, the greatest innovation by far was the isolation of the arrow from the IDST. For a long time, it was assumed that the arrow and the IDST formed an inseperable unit, but the development of the Gridlock tactic caused some theorists to question this; three arrows, and two IDSTs? How can each arrow belong? It became clear that the third, double-ended arrow was an entity in its own right, and could therefore be destroyed independently, allowing each IDST to be destroyed afterwards with ease. So no longer must Claire have to put up with the insinuation that she makes sandwiches for the darts team on their fortnightly visits to the local pub.
	Lesson 8 : IDST Arrows : The IDST H-Bomb? Consider everything we’ve covered so far. The weakness of the IDST comes from its open end (in the case of simple, chain, or Gordian methods), or from the weakness of the linking arrows in the closed grid methods. So what if the arrow and the IDST were fused? Into one element that performed both functions? To my knowledge, this has never been used in practice, and if you did employ an IDST arrow, people would probably say “fuck off, you gay”, which beats everything in these situations.

< < Who’s Brenda? : Meet Her | Fear Her | Touch Her | Hear Her

I have just been forced to overhear the most excruciating conversation of my so-short life. Brenda has just invented and solved a problem that affected no-one, in one of her frequent shouting sessions that let everyone know how fucking loud she is. Today, she let everyone know how important she was by howling at a chinese student temp, who didn’t understand her.

Brenda
You’re going to have to clean your desk for next week, aren’t you?

The Chinaman, whose name used to be Jason, but is now Jackie, looks at her. He isn’t sure she is talking to him, as she didn’t look at him, say his name, or engage him in any way. She simply thought it, and said it. This is Brenda’s magic.

Brenda
I said, you’re going to have to clean your desk for next week. Aren’t you.

Jackie points at his desk and makes a gesture to himself. His English isn’t so hot, but he’s really keen to learn. He lives with other Chinese people and values the times when he’s forced to listen to and speak English. Unfortunately, the distracting elements of Brenda’s conversation - hideous, shrill crow-noise and hypnotic repetition - mean that you can only really listen to her by not listening to her. The second you focus on what she’s saying, the nausea rises and you start to black out.

It’s the conversational equivalent of looking at a partial eclipse in a bucket of water, I suppose.

Brenda
I said, Jackie. [sensing that she doesn't have his full attention] Jackie, I said if we’ve got the data team coming in on Monday, you’re going to have to clean your desk out. They’ll be wanting your desk, won’t they?

I love the idea of a data team. You don’t fuck with the data team. They keep all the student records. They can cancel your library card, change your name. They’re the fucking architects. And there’s seven of them, each with mastery over a different colour of the rainbow.

Anyway, I’ve been drawn out of writing a bunch of shit about gambling, and my attention’s now firmly stuck on Brenda - I tend to start listening at the second repetition, because that’s when the nausea starts being perversely enjoyable. Jackie now gets the gist of what Brenda is cawking about, and looks confused. He begins to say Jan, our immediate bosses’ name. But he doesn’t quite get the chance to put it into a sentence.

Brenda
Well it’s no good Jan Sherlock saying anything, the data team are coming in on Monday! Jan Sherlock can’t stop that, can she?

She really enjoyed saying that. As powerless and frail as she is, nothing pleases her more than other people not being omnipotent. But she’s aware that this sounds a touch bitter, so she adds an aural ;) at the end by generating a staccato laugh with no mirth or sincerity. This woman is no stranger to nervous breakdowns; I just wish she’d stop fucking bouncing back from them.

I can’t emphasise enough how little Jackie has actually said. This is a monologue.

Brenda
How will that leave space for the people coming in, then? Answer me that! They’ll have nowhere to sit! Someone needs to do something about that, don’t they?

I’m so embarrassed on Jackie’s behalf that I’ve started chewing on my finger skin. He hasn’t got a clue how to respond to what this monster cunt is saying, but he’s too polite to walk away. And she can’t see how what she’s saying is wrong, and is unwilling to stop talking, ever. Listening to Brenda’s voice is like trying to pick out the stringy bit from an egg white, while somebody stabs you in the knees.

Jackie thinks he is being told off. He doesn’t know how to reply to this torrent of rhetorical white noise, and Brenda’s momentarily run out of steam. This results in ten seconds of Jackie shuffling nervously, and Brenda looking around for people to agree with her. Jackie stammers another boss’s name, and something clicks with Brenda. She’s either recognising this new person’s authority to issue desks, or she’s slowly becoming aware of what an aggressive, bullying cunt she sounds.

Brenda
Oh, Denise said it? That’s all right then.

And that’s where it ends. As dramatically complete as a Stephen King novel. I wanted it to carry on, to see how many times she could repeat herself, I wanted Jackie to just scream at her to fuck off. But no… Brenda’s decency valve once again stopped her just short of me lunging across the table and snapping her fucking neck, and denied her life the conclusion it so sorely needs.

Gambling is brilliant. Whether you win twenty pee on watching a horse run, or six pounds on whether a drunk dog will bite your newborn child, gambling is exciting, profitable, and best of all, it’s erecting an fizzing neon YA BOO NOBBER and pointing it at God.

God doesn’t like gambling, apart from a £2 flutter on the Grand National. Every bet you make is a bet against God. So when you win, God has to put another bucket of gold ingots and spicy hams in your locker in Heaven. (There is no hell, as such. Just a rubbish heaven with no gold and bland hams.)

I’ve gambled throughout my entire life, so I’ve picked up a few tips.

ROULETTE

1. Always bet on 33.
Seriously, I have played roulette for six years now, and on every spin of every wheel, the winning number has always been 33. This is one of the most closely guarded casino secrets - they actually employ people to say things like “24 feels ace” and “SIX IS HOT TO GO” to stop you betting on 33. Also, sometimes the croupier will put his thumb over one of the threes, and say “Oh Look! It’s number three.” If he does this, politely but firmly ask him to remove this thumb.

This never happens - it is a combination of paints and photoshop trickery employed by casino owners to stop people betting on 33.

BLACK JACK

1. STICK ON 21
It’s so, so, easy to get carried away, especially because the casino way of saying “do the twist” is to say “hit me baby upside one time”. Say these two things in your head.

WHAT YOU SAY	HOW YOU SOUND
“HIT ME”	Fuckin’ shit banana splits. You sound like a player. WOO YOU.
“No thanks, I’ve got enough cards.”	Oh, BOO HOO. I don’t want any more cards because my hands are full. My lickle wrists might snap in two if you put another card - which incidentally weigh about two grams - in them, because I am a shit-eyed FAG.

But remember, even though it sounds really boring, you are going to have to say it at some point. When I started playing Blackjack, the croupier eventually stopped me when I got up to 253. “Dude,” he said. “I admire your tenacity, but you have to learn to let go.” Then he asked me to shut up when I wouldn’t stop saying “hit me” throughout everyone else’s turn. Eventually he hit me LOL.

2. DON’T SIT ON YOUR HANDS
It looks childish and you’ll need at least one hand to move your chips around. If you like the feeling of sitting on hands, then fill a rubber glove with mince, microwave it for thirty seconds, and sit on that.

CRAPS

Craps is named after Christopher Lillicraps, who would - as a child - put five dice up his anus and squat above a bath-tub. Then he’d swallow burps until they turned into a trump, which blew them out. His family were originally horrified, but their discouraging gestures were misinterpreted by the short-sighted Lillicrap as betting punditry. When his family realised that they had accidentally won over £75, they bought Christopher a bigger bath, and took their game to the mafia, who reduced the number of dice to two, because that’s all they had on them.

Contrary to popular belief, you can’t win at craps - if someone refers to you being on a “red hot roll”, that’s just casino slang, and they’re calling you gay.

MELLANCAMP

The rules of Mellancamp are lost to history, so it’s virtually impossible to say whether you’ve won or lost - you just have to stand in absolute silence until one of the judges hands you an upturned bell (meaning you can enter the exoskeleton for a two-minute aisle dash), or a hoof (which allows you to go under the table, where the main game takes place). Once under the table, it’s a free-for-all, as everyone shouts numbers and swear words, and hands massive bunches of five pound notes to each other with a sense of playful purpose. There’s a pair of bears ripping each other to shreds in a cage, but no-one really pays attention to that, and it’s only really kept in for tradition. After two weeeks playing Mellancamp, gamblers are asked to write a 1,000-word essay saying what they have learned, and the most lucid account wins a five-minute exoskeleton aisle dash (but must remember to refuel regularly or they lose everything).

---

WOW-TIME : I have bought a DEFINITE winning roulette strategy from ebay. It only cost £2.50, and very soon I’m going to be a roulette billionaire. I’ll keep you updated, because I’m very excited about my imminent jetsetting lifestyle in Monte Carlo and I might buy The Hague. Well, I say that. The guy hasn’t emailed it to me, yet. Man, I can’t wait. EMAIL ME MY PASSPORT TO MILLIONS OF POUNDS, YOU FUCKER!

I was born in 1974. To celebrate, McDonalds opened their first UK branch in South London, and Mohammed Ali beat George Foreman. I later told Mohammed Ali I would have preferred it if George Foreman had won that fight, and he developed brain damage by way of apology. Sadly, Britain was so taken with my birth that it forgot to keep control of Grenada, which accidentally went independant. But, on balance, the Queen said she’d rather have me than Grenada anyway, even though I pick my nose too much.

But the 80s weren’t a good time for knitting. People were just discovering the joys of metalwork - Fred West was idly doodling his first plans for a metal rendition of the word “cunt” that he could put above Rosemary’s side of the bed. In the 70s, he would have had to make do with making her wear a knitted jumper.

So I’ve not been weaned on woollens, you see. In fact, until my 30th birthday, if you’d come up to me and said “look at the knitcraft on that panda - there’s some flawless-ass stitchwork on that fucker”, it would only have been a disciplined upbringing that prevented me from whipping it out and pissing on your knees. Now I’m older, wiser, I piss on whatever knees I like, and strangely enough - I love the woollens. So where do I get my fix?

Naturally, I go to Arnold Hill Comphrensive School’s Annual Craft Fair. Look at that woolly shit, all piled up there. You know what I’m talking about. See that elephant with its trunk kinda coming out the top of his head? That’s EIGHTY PENCE. You try making an elephant like that for 80p. Even if you were to put its trunk in the right place, you’d be spending probably seven pounds on a ball of wool, some knitting needles, which as it turns out cost around twenty five pounds (unless they’ve discounted them to something gay like £1.79 to make me look like a dick). Then you’ve got to have lessons, and those old women do not go easy on you. My tutelage with Nana Harper nearly killed me, but now at least when I enter a pensioner’s house, we respect each other. Even though we know one of us has to die.

I nearly forgot! There was a tombola, too. You pull a raffle ticket out of the hat, and if you get a number ending with a 0 or a 5, you win! Does that sound too good to be true? Have you just relaxed every sphincter in your body with a frankly ill-advised delight? Well prepare to fly around the room like a fucking balloon when you see what you can win.

That cassette is a NINETY MINUTE cassette. What lasts for ninety minutes? Nothing! You could put everything on that cassette. Also there is a small bowl!

If there’s anything I’ve grown to love in my adulthood more than wools, it’s evasiveness about the number of cards I get for £2.50. Ask how many cards you get for £2.50 in WH Smiths, and they’ll winch a gigantic and unequivocal number one from the ceiling. “No need to be showy about it,” you’ll grump, and shuffle down the street with your hands in your pockets.

It’s not like that at the Craft Fair. £2.50 gets you mostly 10 cards. But that’s only the beginning. When Maureen got her daughter to pack the bags, she said “put mostly ten cards in those bags, dear”. This insanely relaxed attitude makes the child think - “hey, she said mostly ten - it won’t matter if I put mostly mostly ten”. By the time you’re two mostlies away from a number, things can get crazy. I swear, one day I got fourteen cards for £2.50. I walked home fast that day - I wanted to count my cards. There were fourteen!

Of course, there’s a downside to Craft Fairs, and that’s pornography. They’re absolutely littered with turbo-grade filth, and in the more sordid rooms you’re ankle deep in grunt-sweat.

Drawer Fresheners. Who doesn’t gasp in horror every time they open their drawers, at the violent stench of decay and the cloud of erupting spores? Drawer fresheners are a modern essential. But I can’t buy these! Not because they’re lavender - that’s my favourite! - but if I hang around this stall for even a fraction of a second, people will think I’m getting my cheapies from the “vintage” ladies.

I tried to brave the situation (I really wanted those drawer fresheners, I can’t explain), and ask innocent questions about the drawer fresheners, but I was so constantly distracted by the breast-outed lady that I found myself ejaculating the most brutish innuendos…

• Hello! Have you got anything I could slip into my drawers to deaden the smell of mince?
• Lavender… lavender… Oh no! I didn’t just say “Love in da lav, in da anus!” I didn’t say anus at all, twice!
• How much for unsafe?

Well, you know what it’s like. I can’t imagine any of you, as cheeky youths, haven’t pinched a policeman’s helmet to stop him doing a spunk in your mouth.

I was so fucked-up after my outburst at the drawer freshener stall that I spent some chill-time with a couple of dolls and a bear. Look at all the booties! Can you imagine the sense of achievment from making all those booties? I’d be like “I don’t want to go to the pub tonight, I’m going to stop in and look at my booties”. Then I’d be like “now, if only I could find something with the right size feet to put in the booties. If only atoms had toes.”

But that’s what the Craft is all about. You make shoes that someone wears, you are a cobbler. You make a six dozen booties that no fucker will ever want or use, then sir - you are a craftsman.

Look at the Lavender-filled crinoline ladies. They’re the fucking best - and don’t tell anyone, but I’m using them as drawer fresheners. This is a stroke of genius, I swear. Sure, they’re £2 apiece, and the drawer fresheners are like £2 for three, but look at the craft. These ladies are so full of art that they look like mice. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a metaphor.

Idiot Customer : I would like to make a complaint. This crinoline lady is a mouse.
Wise Craftsman : Aren’t we all like mice, in a little way?
Idiot Customer : No, I am a human being. That is absolutely the most unlike a mouse you can be!
Wise Craftsman : Look inside yourself, and embrace the mouse. But remember you are the kind of mouse who has money, and pays for things.
Idiot Customer : OH GOD THE CRAFT IS IN ME, I AM A MOUSE
Wise Craftsman : They’re £2 each. £20 for mostly 10.

Craft Fairs are amazing. Here’s a Craft Fair on the internet. That’s CYBERMAZING. (Check out the Rotamake 360 - if you are serious about your craft, then you would be some kind of elbow-swinging retard not to buy one).

Video Week has been cut short! Why’s that? I’ll tell you for whys! I got really, really, distracted.

A) I was chatting to loads of people on MSN Messenger and they were all like “come on join the party” and I came back with “you better get this party started cos I’m the kinda guy who’ll never settle down”. Seriously, I am the most fun to party with. I say things like “Walla walla BONG” and crazy shit like that.

B) The second reason was that it’s been a truly magnificent day for my beast-colleague, Brenda. Who would have thought that Brenda’s most awful behaviour to date would revolve around the bereavement of a colleague? I shit you the fuck not, she was crying more than the woman whose dad had died.

C) We had a sad-face complaint from the Law of the Playground. I don’t have time to explain now, but the glorious upshot is that we made someone cry about her fat dead mum. I think we can probably step aside now, and say “mission accomplished”.

By way of apology, I’m going to go to Nottingham for four days, and come back on Sunday. Is that OK? Does a period of self-imposed Midlands sound fair enough to you? Or do you want more? Take a piece, I’ve got loads spare.

Before I go, though - if you want to see a photo of me murdering whores on the internet, then you really should probably go see Jekyll and Gingernuts. I’ve never looked dapperer, and frankly, you could have made more of an effort.

COMMENTS HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEKEND
Answer one or more of the following questions.
1. What do you bring to the party (bear in mind I’ve already brought the vodka and dancing honeys)?
2. Once I’ve wiped out all the whores, who should I murder next? Seems a shame to waste the momentum.
3. Should I take down this story from the Law of the Playground?

mahr keef Mispronunciation of “My Keith”. Used primarily by the mother of [name removed], a gargantuan lumpy beast of a woman, who had a melted owl face and corned-beef arms. Her protective cry of “MAHR KEEF”, warped into a gigantic trumpet by her fatty fatty fatfat lungs of fat. She drove a car named “Cheese On Toast”, presumably because the idea of sitting inside of a huge piece of food made her wet her fat knickers in morbid glee.

Monday : Tuesday : Wednesday

As part of my promise to myself not to write about Brenda for a week, I’m trawling through some video files and seeing if they’re any cop. And lo! Some are better than others.

Wednesday brings the zany antics of Jaws and David - two goldfish who simply couldn’t be crazier! Also, there’s Paul and Tom in “The Ankle That I Have Broken”. Crazy days! If there’s one thing crazier than Paul, it’s Tom! Crazy time!!

THE GOLDFISH BOWL

The brief that 3 gave us was to be edgy. They were a new mobile network provider, and wanted to be seen as groundbreaking and “dangerous”. The cuntishness of “dangerous comedy” aside (hands up if you like Monkey Dust - now, everyone with their hand up, please slap yourselves silly), we soon found out exactly how dangerous they meant. Our forbidden list included:

• all swear words stronger than pinkies
• any reference to sex, beyond “a wry look at the difference between the sexes”
• any reference to any drug, including alcohol
• any violence that might be imitated (lasers were OK)
• cruelty to animals. One episode of Paul and Tom featured a robot dog getting tapped on the nose with a spade. It was rejected.
• Arbitrary Other : Robot Q, with his effeminate voice, was judged to be a child, so we couldn’t be cruel to him. The solution? Write a script where he claims, proudly, that he is seven hundred fucking years old (without the fucking, obviously). Then mangle him in every way possible.

They were also so sensitive about appearing racist, that a cartoon was ditched at the last minute because someone noticed that the zookeeper looked a bit Indian. “You can’t imply that an Indian man molests pandas”, they said. Our reply, of course, was “OH COME ON, THEY’RE ALL FUCKING AT IT, TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND”.

“We might as well write about a couple of fucking goldfish,” I thought wryly to myself, whilst puffing on my +1 Pipe of Intelligence. And the rest is zany fishbowl history!

So, how do two goldfish entertain themselves with no external stimuli? Well, they piss and shit themselves, so that’s two episodes sorted. Then there’s special guests, which included an Uncle, a nephew, a deep-sea DJ, and in this episode, a hapless bear and two hundred spectators.

PAUL AND TOM

You’ll remember from Monday that Paul and Tom are intensely competetive, and that by episode forty we’d got so desperate that we had them bickering about wardrobes. This is episode fifty. Seriously, when it came to awful, repetitive comedy, we wrote enough unchanging shit to put Little Britain to shame.